Thanks to a reader for linking this forum thread in which Bit Blot’s Alec Holowka announced that Ryan “icculus” Gordon is now porting the award-winning undersea action game Aquaria to Linux:
Ryan’s working on it, there are a few issues he’s trying to figure out.
The authors of DungeonHack, an RPG that grew out of the “stubbornly determined” ‘Elder Scolls II: Daggerfall‘ remake community as a solo project, sent in a release announcement:
A refreshed Ogre + Bullet + Python demo (Linux and Windows binaries) has been released by the team that took over for the man who had to leave his baby behind (Chad Cuddigan):
The project has evolved into an engine, the Scone RPG Engine, tailored to run large-scale and non-linear role playing games with dynamic social and political worlds. DungeonHack is our legacy “world module” currently all wrapped together as one game.
In the future we will be showcasing as our “Native” world module a highly original and exotic setting with years of crafting put into the political, economic, and societal motives driving its action.
This version 0.10 demo presents a simple but attractive world similar to Daggerfall. Arriving at a typical inn (with a slightly bizarre innkeeper), you will become involved in a small quest leading to a dungeon and a soul to be freed.
We are GPL and willing to share code and art assets with other projects.
You can participate in project discussion at their forums.
A reader let us know that Little Space Duo, a puzzle-based arcade game, was released.
The player guides an unusual pair of heroes – a little girl and a small robot – on their way through a huge spaceship. Both characters possess different abilities and need to work together to overcome obstacles and stay out of trouble. The corridors of the spaceship are patrolled by various robots and little duo must avoid or outsmart them, providing a test for both the player’s cunning and skill!
id Software has updated their free online Quake 3: Arena-derived shooter Quake Live in the past week. Included among the other requisite changes is a Linux-specific bugfix item:
Mouse now properly returns to the middle of screen when leaving a menu under in_dgamouse 1. Should help with mouse focus issues.
I meant to post this quite some time ago, but that’s moving for you: Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted a preview of Heroes of Newerth, the DoTA-inspired multiplayer strategy game from the Linux-friendly developers S2 Games.
Also, if you’re a beta-tester you can pre-order the full game here. I haven’t had a chance to play it myself in over a month (and that initial experience was fairly rocky since I had never played DoTA), but this guide list at the forums looks promising.
LGP announced the release of Shadowgrounds Survivor, a third-person/top-down alien-invasion action game:
As promised! Shadowgrounds Survivor is now available. We’ve had reports that some people have neglected sleep playing Shadowgrounds for the last two days, and are close to completion. We ask you please to sleep at least once before starting Survivor, yes we know the game is good, but, we don’t want anyone dying from too much Shadowgrounds goodness!
We have a surprise announcement for today! While we have Shadowgrounds Survivor due out at the end of the week, we are releasing its predecessor, Shadowgrounds, immediately, as a budget title! Get the story from the beginning today, and on Friday, find out what happens next!
Second, for the X2 & X3-related news:
A new patch is now available for X3: Reunion. This patch fixes the most serious issue reported so far, the memory leak that we have been looking for the last few months. If you have been having a problem with the X3 memory footprint, random crashes, or slowdowns, this should fix your problem.
A new patch is now available for X2: The Threat, which makes the sound pulseaudio compatible, and fixes some minor bugs.
X2 has a new version of the Demo available, with all of the improvements that the full [has]. We are also announcing a permanent price cut in X2, down from £30 to £20. Finally, we are announcing that X2 has now been added to our download catalogue. Resellers can download the files immediately, and are able to resell it as of midday tomorrow. Please see your favourite reseller for access. If you’ve been putting off checking out X2 and X3, now is a great time to take a look, with rental versions available as well as purchases!
Lastly, Majesty is back in stock:
For those that have been waiting, Majesty is now back in stock! With a new colour manual, and now with PenguinPlay support, order your new version today! If you already have a copy, and don’t want a new box, all the game features are available in the new Majesty patch which has just been added to lgp_update.
Timothee “TTimo” Besset posted id Software and Linux to his blog which provides his perspective on the uncertainty surrounding id Software’s intentions to port future titles to Linux.
As for idTech 5 / Rage, Carmack originally said, “If there are hundreds of thousands of linux users playing Quake Live when we are done with Rage, that would certainly influence our decision [to schedule a native Linux port]” and Besset provides an update saying that “Linux players represent about 5% of the QuakeLive population.” I’m not aware of any recent measurements of how big the QuakeLive population is, but I suspect it’s not approaching the four million mark just yet.
Besset’s parting words, however, paint a slightly different picture:
It is likely i will be involved with idTech 5 in the near future, I’ll be damned if we don’t find the time to get Linux builds done
NAE, a 2D space trading and combat game similar vein to Escape Velocity has released a new beta version of their game. The latest release includes the following:
Completely rewritten equipment system
Non-player ships are now generated in-game and are much stronger
A demo of Mad Skills Motocross has been released for the public general to try this retro style racing game. It reminds me of some racing game that I played on the apple II but I cannot put my name on it. If you enjoy the demo, you can purchase the version at their website.
Koonsolo announces a free update for Mystic Mine. In this game you guide a goldcar through impossible “Escher” levels. The free update includes following improvements:
* The multiplayer game now tracks the overall scores for all played levels. This means that you can organize a tournament with your friends, and at the end see who won the most games.
* Mystic Mine is now running faster, so slower machines are now better supported.
* The first levels of adventure mode are now even more fun.
For those who already bought Mystic Mine, and want to receive the latest version, just send a mail to koen@koonsolo.com and your download will be reactivated. And for those who don’t have the full game yet, play the new demo and have fun!
